Industrial Color’s video team collaborated with director, Nathan Brown for the complete shoot-to-shop job of creating concert visuals for Jay Z’s Magna Carter World Tour. The visuals are in a lo-fi, surveillance-style suggesting government footage and drone strikes alike. Each element is synced up to the beat of the music. Our crew was able to film content for these visuals right here in our Tribeca headquarters making use of our industrial environment – and even some of our own employees!

The inspiration for the visual language of Jay-Z’s Magna Carter Holy Grail tour came from a collection of images of redacted government materials, surveillance imagery, and low-fi hacker culture – as if the entire time the show was going on – we were being watched by big brother and the information we were receiving was being recorded, audited, and censored. After the original references were collected – I spent eight days working 24/7 with Industrial Color to bring the ideas to life, working hand-in-hand with their production team sourcing materials for two-days of in-house shooting. After that we went straight to the editorial and animation departments – repurposing the original footage with a arsenal of stock imagery that was cut and reiterated throughout the show – after a week of intensive editing we finished the project and traveled to Manchester, UK to raster and stage a day before the first date. The entire project was a perfect example of vertical integrated fluidity – and the importance of utilizing multiple services under one roof. – Director, Nathan Brown

The Magna Carter Tour has been receiving rave reviews around the world and New York is excited to welcome him to his home arena, The Barclay Center this weekend beginning on January 12th.

“With the stage mostly to himself, he didn’t pull any punches: There was no back-and-forth vocal volley as he did with JT; no double-digit renditions of any hit singles as with West. Even the stage setup was relatively stripped-down, with its standard set of transparent neon-lit risers and massive video screens flooded all evening with recurring images of government surveillance video, drone strikes and explosions. (Jay and Barack: talk it out, dudes!) More than anything, the show was an exercise in Jay’s ability to deftly maneuver between hits – while incorporating new material off this past summer’s middling Magna Carta, Holy Grail (“Holy Grail,” “Tom Ford”) into his time-tested bounty of setlist favorites.” -Dan Hymanm Rolling Stone